


Hal-berd through the heart

by nightfall_in_winter



Category: Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Armie is Falstaff and Timmy is Hal, Dubious Consent, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Violence, Pining, Rejection, Sorry Joel, The only Falstaff and Hal we deserved, Unrequited Love, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfall_in_winter/pseuds/nightfall_in_winter
Summary: Falstaff extended his arm to tuck a stray curl behind his ear and then, without thinking, his hand slowly found its way to Hal’s exposed collarbone where the skin felt soft and warm on his fingers. He leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on that small freckle that was haunting his dreams. The prince recoiled in disgust and pushed him away. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, sobering up in seconds before punching his stricken friend in the face...For those of you who wanted to see Armie and Timmy as Falstaff and Hal. :)
Relationships: Sir John Falstaff/Prince Hal (Shakespeare), Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 62
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

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*****

It might have started that wild night when Falstaff looked at Hal across the room with blurry eyes and found himself strangely fascinated by the fire dancing on his face. The prince’s hair was dishevelled, his cheeks were blushed and there were sweaty drops above his upper lip when his mouth split into a wide, drunken smile. A silent feeling of something resembling joy washed over Falstaff when he remembered that he will be the one putting him to bed when the feast was over. He pictured Hal stumbling on the stairs spitting out some tipsy gibberish before leaning on him for support.

The warmth he felt at the image of the young prince sprawled across the bed was a tad surprising, but Falstaff brushed it off at the time. Hal was a nuisance, but he had a soft spot for the little fucker. Fluffing up the pillow under his curls for him and taking the robe over his raised arms was what any good friend would do. Right?

Or it could have been on that winter morning when he entered Hal’s room and found him, face buried in the in the bosom of the fat prostitute and his boyish naked frame exposed to the cold. On mornings like this Falstaff usually shook him violently and screamed in his ear that he had duties to attend to before throwing some presentable clothes at him and leaving the hungover prince with a thousand buckles to clasp.

This time he stood in the door frame quietly, unwilling to spoil the moment when he could enjoy Hal’s soft snores and observe his delicate shoulders without looking like a creep. That day the poor streetwalker who woke up in the prince’s bed was the only one who heard screams and bore Falstaff’s sudden wrath. He walked her hastily to the door, clutching her arm until it bruised before calling her “lardy arse” and “dirty trollop”. “Don’t go anywhere near him again, DO YOU HEAR ME?” he shouted as he kicked her out and clenched his fists. The heavy door slammed, and Falstaff hid again from the outside world as he tried to compose his thoughts. He didn’t have a clue why he was so angry. Or he did but preferred to remain oblivious to the voices inside that told him that he was a little jealous.

Jealous of a damn whore.

By the time fresh spring leaves covered the trees in the palace gardens and swifts and martins were nesting under the eaves of the stone buildings, Falstaff could name the feeling that was stretching his chest and gave him a sweet ache. It was hidden in the patience that allowed him to wait for an accidental brush of fingers or a glimpse of pale flesh; the readiness to jump to Hal’s defence every time when he was called a whoring fool; the hand that was holding the cup of water to the prince’s dry mouth in the morning and sharpening his halberd in the afternoon. It was a feeling he could never act upon but made him happy, nonetheless. Happy to even wipe Hal’s drool and empty his sick bucket. Nothing the prince’s body did could be deemed disgusting or contemptible. He was special.

_Too fucking special._

It was a lazy evening in May, unusually hot for that time of the year, when Hal stood by the window enjoying the evening breeze. They drank murky ale and shared a joke and all Falstaff could think about was how he could do this forever – drinking in Hal’s manic, high-pitched laughter and watching his hair coming alive in the gentle wind. The prince’s beige shirt was too big for his body and he was so fair and fragile in it, he looked almost like a mythical creature. Falstaff extended his arm to tuck a stray curl behind his ear and then, without thinking, his hand slowly found its way to Hal’s exposed collarbone where the skin felt soft and warm on his fingers. He leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on that small freckle that was haunting his dreams. The prince recoiled in disgust and pushed him away. “What the fuck are you doing?” he hissed, sobering up in seconds before punching his stricken friend in the face.

That night drunk Falstaff, dried blood still visible where Hal’s fist found his mouth and nose, went to town and picked up gap-toothed Bertha who was prowling the streets around Boar’s Head Inn. He held her head down until she almost suffocated on his cock, then put her on all fours and fucked her up the arse like a raging demon till she bled and begged him to stop. Two things never happened again after that episode. Hal and Falstaff’s drunken nights together became a thing of the past, just like the disgraced knight’s brief encounters with gap-toothed Bertha. She left Eastcheap for Tower street in search of clients, panicking every time when a tall, broad-shouldered man approached her…

*******

He was The King now, that much Falstaff knew in his endless alcoholic daze that didn’t help him forget but made his self-hatred somewhat bearable. On the night of their reunion, he could only think about how unusual that luxury cloak looked in the dim, dirty tavern where he was finishing his sixth pint of ale. He couldn’t discern the clothes, nor the bowl cut, but he would have recognised that tall, willowy frame with shoulders hunched forward anywhere.

 _He is here, he needs me!_ Falstaff allowed himself a small triumph as he watched Hal’s/Henry’s lips moving pleadingly and admired his beautiful neck. So swan like, almost breakable, yet holding the now wise head of a young King destined for greatness. Determined and brave but so, so vulnerable _. And absolutely gorgeous!_

My King. _My Hal._

The journey to France broke all of Falstaff’s illusions that he will ever be able to shake off the spell. It was seeping through him like the rainwater finding its way into his tent - clean and innocent on the palm of his hand and dark and murky when it pooled by his boots. Sometimes it made him fly with the bare hint of a smile he could detect on that stern face and other times it strangled him like an old pain you can’t escape or jump over. Chaste were the compassion and the willingness to give one’s own life for the King but there were also visions, lustful and depraved like a Roman orgy where every possible source of pleasure was explored, and boundaries didn’t exist. Forbidden images of a beloved body, whiter than the tower of Eglise St-Martin*, melting and writhing under his touch. They startled Falstaff at night with their frankness and made him painfully hard. He wanked quickly, eager for a quick relief but never dared to say aloud the name that was on his lips every time when he came in his hand.

*****


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there will be three chapters...
> 
> Thank you very much for your kind comments. <3

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*****

A delicate balance settled between them, nestled in the fragile shell of patience and mutual understanding. They spoke when they needed to, bound by duty and pressing circumstances. Only the occasional bounce of a curl when The King lifted his head from the map after discussing the longbowmen on the right flank; or the whiff of his sweat when he passionately envisaged the long, sharpened stakes pointed towards the enemy, were Falstaff’s little moments of happiness. Those were the times when he felt he knew his King better than anyone as he was attuned to pick all the nuances in his behaviour.

On the fateful day when the balance was destroyed, the King absent-mindedly ran a hand through the laces up the front of his gambeson and didn’t look up. Falstaff knew this was the norm now. Military tactics didn’t require regular eye contact. It would have felt obscene after…Hal’s gaze was tracing the sharpened edge of the halberd and his finger was following closely.

“Do you know what I want now?” he asked. Falstaff held his breath and his reply as the question lingered uncomfortably close to a very dangerous territory where they couldn’t go. The King hissed as a few droplets of blood rained on his greaves.

“I want a woman, Falstaff. Find me a WOMAN. _I have been hard for weeks._ ”

The knight sensed the strange note in his voice but couldn’t define it. They were way beyond that, he thought, way past acknowledging that any of them did anything sexual since…The siege was long. Doom was hanging over their heads each day. Do it for the sake of the good old days, Hal said with a sly smile. This was something new and very different to the debauched parties and wobbly dances in Eastcheap, where they shared the alcohol and slapped the whores’ round bottoms. The prince was always more than capable to find female company by himself and always did so alone. This here was a statement. Hal wanted the warmth of a woman’s body – fine, but why did he consider fitting to assign the task to Falstaff?

He likes to humiliate me, the knight thought but I’ll take it, as there’s nothing I won’t do for him. Moreover, I will be a willing participant in the final crushing of my own dignity.

_Hard for weeks. Hard for weeks._

So, take this and go to Hell, Hal, he added to himself bitterly later when he brought Colette to the King’s tent. He left without as much as a nod but didn’t get far, drawn by unhealthy curiosity. Hal didn’t bother removing her clothes. He silently lifted her skirt to reveal an ample bottom and hurriedly drove into her. They didn’t exchange a word. Hal was hasty and clumsy and almost done in a few deep thrusts. But as he approached the end and pulled her hair to put her on her knees, one silent pair of eyes behind Colette’s back met the King’s. And as Hal’s seed spilled down her practised throat and his loud grunts were dying down, it was Falstaff who swallowed every bit of Hal’s orgasm as he held his gaze. None of them dared to blink, sharing something perverse yet intimate without touching each other. Even the remnants of the King’s pleasure, shared in a twisted way with an oblivious whore, were enough to send shivers down Falstaff's spine and fire to his groin.

_Hard for weeks. Hard for weeks._

Was it a provocation? A performance? Or _an invitation?_ Falstaff didn’t know what to make of it. It seemed implausible to him that the King would build that thick wall of indifference between them only to tear it apart now for a cheap thrill. No, it looked like a veiled warning for Falstaff reminding him to know his place and to keep his distance. And, of course, Hal had to rub some salt in the wound. __

_I know what you want. Look, but never dare to touch._

Falstaff knew that too well.

******

Hesitance. Struggle. Anger. That’s what Falstaff was getting from him. The King’s lips were spitting out horrible words: “And I want all French prisoners in our train put to death. Leave their corpses speared on pikes by the river’s edge.*”, but his whole body was shaking with the need to be seen and understood. Helped perhaps. Even challenged.

And Falstaff responded, defying him, before adding:

“Show your feeling in here, with me. Don’t let it outside this tent.*”

He felt the King getting closer and saw his mouth twitching cruelly as it spelled out the word “disembowel”. Falstaff did his bit, at least that’s what he thought, showing him that he was wrong but also that he cared and that it was all right to shout, to be overwhelmed, to be scared, as long as he was the only witness of the King’s human weakness.

Daring to look up now could have earned him a sword through the gut but Falstaff did it anyway as there was no going back now. Hal was almost touching him as the words were dying in his mouth, his breath hot and menacing on the knight’s face.

“You are not that man either…” Falstaff said with a sigh and prepared to leave. Sad but undefeated. After all, what was left to be said to someone, King or not, who considered his friend’s (were they even friends anymore?) life disposable and worthless and couldn’t bother to see the man behind the animal.

_That’s all I am fit for, to do his dirty work! Sick buckets, whores and executions are just different faces of the very same thing. I mean nothing to him! Never did, never will…_

In the days after, when he recalled this moment, Falstaff realised that he was seconds away from leaving for real. And then it came. The King’s eyes, almost black with a green rim, so alike the wet pebbles covered in algae on the shores of the Somme, were focused on Falstaff’s lips. Barely audible was The King’s voice as his hand froze in the air just before touching his. The pretence was dropped in one brief moment and then Falstaff could smell nothing but fear and Hal’s unwillingness to be left alone. The words came and they were as sweet as they were unexpected:

“Stay with me…I need you.”

*****


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long for anyone to care anymore (accidentally deleted my drafts!) but I don't like to leave things unfinished. :)
> 
> Full liberty with timelines, plot, characters. You won't find any logic here.

  


*****

Falstaff might have asked if it was an order оr a plea. He probably stopped for a second, intoxicated by Hal’s sweet smell climbing up his nostrils. He might have uttered “Why are you doing this to me?” before clenching his hand into a fist to stop himself from reaching out to touch. _Or grasp and claim._ He probably caught up the hesitance or just wanted to imagine it – a situation where Hal really considered him, needed him and looked into his eyes with want, not contempt. _Why is he playing with me like that?_ Falstaff might have felt himself splitting into tiny slivers of hope and despair and for a few short seconds he wanted to do everything and nothing at once. Wait. Caress. Hit. Disappear. Die. It’s just a moment, he thought, a moment that will pass like a thousand others and I will be left with that empty hole inside me that Hal will never be willing to fill. He closed his eyes, shattered by the sheer weight of his emotions and he felt it. It might have been the cathartic power of the tears that he brewed inside for a long time, his only true testimony of much he needed another human being.

None of these mattered as the only certain thing was Hal’s lips on his, pressing and insistent and his fingers in his hair. He responded with an almost brutal urge, losing the forlorn moments of his life in the swirls of Hal’s tongue and his quickened heartbeat. Angry, wet desire drilled through his bones as he hastily removed Hal’s breast plate and chainmail. He kissed him like a punishment, leaving teeth marks and bloody streaks in his trail as he wanted the King’s skin and scent, and his salty moans in his ear. He had imagined this; Hal suffering with need, begging to be taken or spared, the tangy taste of his oxblood nipples and the hardness of his hip bones under his palm.

Falstaff stopped for a moment when Hal’s linen underpants slid down and his whole slender body was exposed before him. O _nly for me,_ he thought as his eyes feasted on luminous skin, before he heard the King’s scrambled words coming from another dimension.

“Wanted…so much…”

Swallowing. Dry throat.

“Always…”

Falstaff cupped his jaw and sank in the moisture of his eyes. The arrogance had vanished. In the soft core of his nakedness Falstaff saw it all; the failure Hal was always expected to be and the warmth he wasn’t supposed to receive. In his mouth swam the bitterness of his father’s rejection and the lonely bouts of guilt suffered in silence. Over the goose bumps of his skin, prickled with desire and strange shyness, Falstaff read the easy lewdness of countless lips who kissed but never loved or whispered comfort. So many feelings unravelled in one precious moment. Pressure, duty and fear of death paled into insignificance and they were just two men, desperate for closeness and willing to feel…

“Forgive…”

Falstaff touched his lips. Shhh! No words needed.

He wanted this! _Me_. In the arms of the whores and between their soft thighs. _Me._ In the dark taverns of Eastcheap and on the ship to France. _Me_. With his snooty smile untangling my weakness for him and his fist in my face… _What is there to forgive?_

“Never…a man before…”

_Oh God! It is happening._

“Don’t…hurt…”

As if I ever could…

“Please…”

My Hal’s begging. Shut up and kiss me, you fool!

He is _vulnerable_. His body is so delicate out of his armour and his face is suddenly child-like, open and trusting. He is scared of what I might do to him, but he still wants it. Falstaff could feel the anger evaporating from his heart to give way to affection. It felt more fragile than a daisy crushed under horse hooves, and yet stronger and brighter than all the flowery springs bringing life since the beginning of time. Pure and sweet, despite being nurtured in a mind, toughened by brutality, the emotion crawled into Falstaff’s fingers as a gentle touch. He was back in Hal’s chamber, looking at his chest moving up and down in his sleep and forgetting to breathe himself to prolong the moment forever. He licked the beloved freckle on the collarbone and squeezed Hal until his ribs cracked.

“Won’t ever hurt you…I promise.”

In Falstaff’s dreams making love to Hal was a treacherous concept. His desire for him was boundless but so was his need to emulate the power The King held over him. The latter dissipated quickly in a mouth that went further and further down, determined to give pleasure, lighting up fires on Hal’s torso, belly and the dark softness of his pubes.

_Tell me, tell me, my sweet Hal, the hal-berd through my heart, how can I make you feel good? Do you like my tongue circling around the slit? Sucking the head gently before sliding all the way down to your tender balls and beyond? Do you like me parting your thighs as I rain kisses on their supple inner side in search for the sweetest spot? The one that makes your fingers tense in my hair and turns your mouth pink when you bite your lower lip. Will you let me find your core and feel your pulse in my mouth as your rim goes puffy and opens up as an invitation? Don’t’ close it again, let me see the stamen of your pleasure, right between the petals of the softest flower I have ever kissed. Be unabashedly open for me, let me drink dew from it and give me all. I will be so gentle, as your eyes, wide with awe and fear, tell me I need to lick even softer, prolonging every stroke of my tongue like applying an ointment. You like that, as your whole body contracts and the precious bud is now relaxed and agape. I’ll take it, if you let me, but I am only borrowing. Give me your anxiety and I’ll give you Heaven._

“Does it hurt?” Falstaff whispers and crashes their foreheads, but Hal’s blissed out face tells him it doesn’t. Well, a little, but it’s such a small price to pay for the way their bodies tremble into each other and feed on mutual energy. When he approaches the end, Hal just wants to cry, burying his nose in Falstaff’s chest, suddenly aware that their bodies need to part soon and he is NOT ready, never will be. And they stay together long after their mixed release has dried in the corners of their lips - two interconnected vessels carrying blood to one shared heart.

******

“I was told…” Catherine de Valois was choosing the words carefully, as she was determined, but also diplomatic. If she wanted to get anywhere, she needed to be patient and keep her eyes open.

“I was told that he really trusts you and nobody else, because you aren’t afraid of him and you tell him the truth”.

Falstaff stood up. She looked curious, not menacing.

“And? What do you think?”

“That people are weak. Flattery is easy, painless and non-dangerous. And you really stand out from those, well…because you are not a…” She murmured “lèche-cul” and pursed her lips.

“Arse licker??”

“Oui”.

“Oh…”

These English people are so, so strange, Catherine thought to herself as Falstaff laughed and laughed until his lungs ached and then laughed some more.

*******


End file.
